Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥
Humor: Not much
Perspective: First person switching between chapters of hero and heroine

Should I read in order?
There is a novella, Her Alien Exchange, that is set in the same writing world as this one, but it’s not necessary to read prior to this. (Though I did enjoy it and recommend it!)

Basic plot:
Luan is trying to balance the politics of her world to prevent war when she is pushing to participating in the mating ceremony. Here, she meets a bounty hunter that has her wondering if it’s time to mate.

Give this a try if you want:
- BOTH alien mains
- science fiction romance
- tattooed hero
- bounty hunter hero
- fated mates
- hero nurses heroine back to health
- class difference – heroine is a princess and leader to her planet and hero is a bounty hunter/former slave
- medium steam – there are 3 scenes but 2 are close together at the end

My thoughts:
So I am sad I struggled with this one a bit. Maybe it’s because of reading the prequel novella first and I had a different direction going in my head?

This one is all in the same ‘book universe’ as the novella and connected in that way, but overall a very separate feel. In this one, we are taken to an alien world with two alien mains. The novella seemed a lot more character focused and higher steam and that was my romance jam :)

So, things I appreciated about this one -
- I liked the world building and character cultures that were introduced. It was definitely all new and unique feeling to me
- I liked that we got pretty equal time in both character’s heads
- I loved the fated mates feelings here and the bit of class difference angst
- I liked that it was very unpredictable to me

But I struggled with -
- There wasn’t as much character focus as I wanted. As in, romantically I guess? There is a lot of politics being introduced here and that is really just a personal preference for me that it’s not my thing.
- I felt a bit overwhelmed with the amount of new things I was trying to learn. Learn about them as different species and their cultures, and the planet, and the various other species and customs that were coming into play. I felt like we were well in the middle of some intergalactic policies and talk of being on the brink of war and I felt like I was scrambling to find footing most of the book for exactly what was going on.
- I did feel like I knew the characters a bit, but at the end I still felt like I didn’t know them very well. (This might come in later novels).
- The steam was there but didn’t work the best for me because for me (Again, this is all subjective to what I like/prefer) because of the bit of instalust in the beginning. We get a scene towards the beginning but they had just met so I was still trying to figure out who they were. The other scenes were towards the end and I felt like a lot of the focus had been on the politics of the planet’s uncertainty more than the characters.

Overall though I can feel the strong heart of the author within this novel. I think if you are searching for some unique alien world building and like political intrigue, this series will really captivate you.

Cock/Hero Stats:

Hero is from Sholonus, which was destroyed. (Not sure how many of his kind are left, if any) They mate for life and being separated from their mate could possibly kill them. His cock seems fairly normal? But has ridges. They have mating runes that look like tattoos and appear on their bodies when they are mated to another (and doesn’t involve penetration necessarily). He can mark his mate with his cock during orgasm by injecting the same cells into that make up his mating runes. His species, Shol, can only claim 1 mate and these cells help him find her and keep her protected. He also has pointed ears

Heroine Stats

Heroine is an estreld and the more jewels displayed on an estreld’s arms the more powerful they were. It is the way the land has blessed their species to absorb more of the moon’s rays. When a female is ready to mate they will feel the pull of their shoulder glands pulse, letting them know that they are likely to be ready to release their eggs. When they are fertile, their wings also sprout. She glows like the moon and has fangs.

Content warnings:

Brief mention of loss of the heroine’s siblings
Slavery

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

11% - hero must provide a ‘sample’, and after seeing a transmission of the heroine, he jerks off with her in mind (it’s short and not explicit)
28% - 🔥 kiss, fingering for her
75% - 🔥 touches, kisses, oral for her, cock touches, fingering for her, missionary
91% - 🔥 kisses, oral for her, missionary/doggy style (exhibitionism)